A Keeper(3)

It was only three months since the funeral and yet the sight of Convent Hill still seemed strangely unfamiliar. The size of the houses increased along with the gradient until she reached number sixty-two. The street lights spluttered on as she pulled up outside the home where she had been reared. Lots of spaces. People must still be away, she thought. Getting out of the car the rain felt good on her face as she looked up at the house that still managed to appear imposing. Three storeys tall and double-fronted, it had been built for a bank manager but her grandfather had bought it when the shop had started to do well. She remembered her mother telling her how Uncle Jerry and especially his wife Auntie Gillian had tried to get it after her granny had died. But their mother’s will had been very clear: Jerry got the shop and Patricia got the house.

The rain streaked down the dark glass of the windows and dripped off the windowsills. Elizabeth struggled to remember ever being happy here and yet she knew she had been. Balloons had been tied to the black railings that separated the house from the street and small girls in candy-coloured dresses had been deposited by mothers in heavy winter coats. One of her earliest memories was her mother taking her by the hand across the street so that they could admire the lights of their own Christmas tree through the dining-room window. So long ago. Elizabeth felt as if these were the memories of another person, her life was so removed from this house, these people, the town of Buncarragh.

She thought of where she lived now. A cramped two-bedroomed walk-up apartment above a nail salon on Third Avenue. Her own and Zach’s lives stuffed into a space not much bigger than her childhood bedroom. She was glad her mother had never come to visit. Seeing it through her eyes would have ruined it for her because, despite its many limitations, Elizabeth loved her little nest. The warm glow of lamps in the evening, the morning sun that squeezed through the gaps of the surrounding buildings to fill the tiny kitchen, Zach sitting proudly at the rickety desk he had found on the street and inexpertly painted himself, but most of all the sense of achievement it gave her. Life after Elliot hadn’t been easy and there had been sleepless nights when she thought her only option might have been to return home to Buncarragh, so every time she turned the key in her own Manhattan front door, it felt like a victory.

Now she was searching for the keys to Convent Hill in her overstuffed handbag. Around the worn stone steps outside she noticed the green trim of weeds. She hoped the lock wouldn’t be too stiff but the key turned easily. Probably Auntie Gillian sniffing around for what she wanted to take. Elizabeth was considering what her aunt might have coveted when she noticed the absence of the two rose bushes in pots that had stood sentry on either side of the shallow porch. That bloody woman. She pushed the door open with a small grunt of irritation and felt for the hall light switch. An untidy mound of post lay on the ground in front of her and more had been placed by someone on the thin hall table. Everything looked the same: the gold and green patterned carpet runner going up the stairs; Cinderella herself had fled from the ball on those steps, pop stars had greeted adoring fans as they made their way from jumbo jets down to the tarmac. The framed Chinese prints still hung on either side of the living-room door; the narrow passage still led past the stairs to the kitchen, which had been her first port of call every day returning from school. So familiar that it was like looking at her own face in a mirror and yet something had changed. Mixed in with the comforting smells of furniture polish and coal fires were the unfamiliar scents of damp and neglect. Nobody lived here and that realisation struck Elizabeth with a greater force than she had expected. She felt as if something had been stolen from her.

The car unpacked, Elizabeth sat at the kitchen table with a bowl of tomato soup in front of her. She felt oddly self-conscious as she raised the spoon to her mouth but of course there was no one here to watch her. Nobody would walk in. It occurred to her that she had probably never been alone in this house before. Babysitters, neighbours, school friends and of course her mother meant that there had always been another heartbeat. She put down the spoon and looked around the kitchen. Every surface was piled with ancient crockery now coated in dust and grease. Behind each pine-door-fronted cabinet she knew there were more plates and pots and pans. Jars of chutney and cans of marrowfat peas that were probably older than she was. So much stuff and this was just one room. A heavy wave of fatigue swept over her and she felt defeated by the enormity of the task ahead of her. She checked her watch. Only eight o’clock. She didn’t care. She was going to bed with the hope of waking up fully motivated. She grabbed her small carry-on case and headed up the stairs.

On the landing she hesitated. Where should she sleep: her childhood bedroom or her mother’s room? The thought of sleeping in her small single bed didn’t appeal and somehow she felt it would make her mother’s room seem even emptier. Back in New York she had felt guilty for not missing her mother more, but in this house she felt her absence like a physical ache. She opened the door to her mother’s room. The overhead light was far too bright so she quickly switched on one of the bedside lamps instead. Apart from the abandoned walking frame and the ugly utilitarian commode that her mother had needed before she died, the room was as she remembered. She sat on the shiny dark green comforter that covered the bed. The springs creaked beneath her weight and suddenly she was a little girl alone in her room hearing that sound, knowing that her mother was in bed and all was safe. She would never have that feeling again. Unexpectedly she found that she was crying. She braced her hands on her knees and with her head bowed, let the tears fall. Her mother was gone and she could never come home again. Some of her tears were for her own child. She hoped she made Zach feel as safe and loved as she had been but she doubted it. The world was terrifying and nobody could be stupid enough to think that a lecturer in Romantic poetry living in a tiny rented apartment could ever protect a sensitive, easily distracted young man from all its dangers. She lay down and fell into the emotional void that the time difference, jet lag and the welcome escape of sleep provided.